In the past, many names, objects and ideas in the Star Wars universe were canon merely because Lucas said so, particularly somewhere in an interview (i.e., never appeared in the films, scripts, production notes or even novels).

As this question states, Lucas was "word of God" but now Disney owns the franchise and dictates canon.

I added another Lucas quote to that wookieepedia article, in which he talks about how both the dark and light side "need to be there" and that "everything is built on the push-pull tension created by two sides of the equation". So I don't think Lucas' position is as simple as "the light side is natural, bringing balance to the Force = eliminating the Dark Side". My interpretation is that the Sith were unbalancing the Force itself in favor of the Dark Side, as suggested by this answer, so balance was eliminating the Sith, but not the Dark Side.
– HypnosiflJan 27 '16 at 18:46

Lucas' interview comments fall under the category of "making of" or "behind the scenes" information and, as such are no longer considered to be canonical.
– ValorumJan 27 '16 at 19:06

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@Richard - Has anyone at Disney said that Lucas' statements should be put in the same category as "making of" or "behind the scenes", or is this your own inference? If the latter, it seems reasonable to me that Lucas' statements about how his universe works might be treated with some special authority different from other behind the scenes info, so this question would be worth leaving open as distinct from the other one.
– HypnosiflJan 27 '16 at 19:15

@Hypnosifl -To quote from the press-release "... the six Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and produced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. These stories are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align. Note, only the stories are the immovable objects, not anything else.
– ValorumJan 27 '16 at 19:50

@Hypnosifl - One of the main reasons why they nuked the old canon system was precisely because there were so many contradictions from Lucas' (and others) interviews, earlier stories, making-of featurettes, etc etc. Certainly his statements are to be treated with respect, but they're no longer canonical, not since he sold the rights to the SW universe to Disney.
– ValorumJan 27 '16 at 19:55

1 Answer
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Canonicity in the Star Wars universe is, as of April 2014, determined by a working group comprised of representatives of Disney and Lucasfilm known as the Lucasfilm Story Group.

The primary change made is that the old canon system (G-Canon, T-Canon, etc) has been nuked from orbit and only the original six feature films (the Original Trilogy and the Prequel trilogy, as seen in the 2011 Blu-ray Edition), Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV show, Star Wars: The Clone Wars film and Star Wars: Rebels TV shows are considered to be part of the official Star Wars canon.

"While Lucasfilm always strived to keep the stories created for the EU
consistent with our film and television content as well as internally
consistent, Lucas always made it clear that he was not beholden to the
EU. He set the films he created as the canon. This includes the six
Star Wars episodes, and the many hours of content he developed and
produced in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. These stories are the immovable
objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all
other tales must align."

Taken at face value, this press-release would seem to include proclamations from Mr. Lucas and anyone else associated with the making of the films. Although their words are interesting and certainly deserve notice, they aren't one of the "immovable objects" to which everything else is subordinate.

Is there an example of a word-of-God statement that Lucas previously made that has since been explicitly ignored? I'm curious to know if they are still de facto standards to adhere to, even if not immovable objects.
– ThunderforgeJan 28 '16 at 6:26

@thunderforge - In the making of star wars book, Lucas is quoted (via a statement by Leia) as saying that there are 23000 systems in the Republic. This has been extensively debunked by the films. That being said, it was debunked by Lucas himself before the sale to Disney.
– ValorumJan 28 '16 at 8:15

I don't see how this answers the question. We already know how LSG defines canonicity, but the point of this question is that their definition says nothing about Word of God. So is it "everything we didn't explicitly list is not canon", or is it "everything that George worked on directly is canon, therefore everything he says is canon"?
– MarthaJan 28 '16 at 21:22

@Martha - They're very explicit that everything not on the list is not canon. In fairness, they've tweaked that a little to allow some stuff like the novelisations to sneak through, but those are an edge case.
– ValorumJan 28 '16 at 21:24